Unhealthy Haze Particle pollution and airborne arsenic compounds sully Lane County's air. BY KERA ABRAHAM The March 15 issue of The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine confirmed what epidemiologists have suspected for decades: Air pollution is linked to premature death. When cities clean up their air, death rates decline. According to the American Lung Association's (ALA) State of the Air 2005 report, our local air measures up pretty badly. Eugene-Springfield ranks as the fifth most-polluted metropolitan area by short-term fine particulate matter in the nation, after Los Angeles, Fresno and Bakersfield, Calif., and Pittsburgh, Penn. No other Pacific Northwest cities made the list. The ALA gave Lane County an "F" grade for short-term particle pollution, indicating an excessive number of days when air pollution levels spike. Between 2001 and 2003, Lane County experienced 58 days when the air was unhealthy for sensitive groups and seven days when the air was downright hazardous, yielding a weighted average of 22.8 bad air quality days per year — almost seven times the number needed to get an "F" grade. The ALA blames home wood burning for Lane County's high particulate levels. Eugene-Springfield's short-term air pollution may be putting Lane County's most sensitive populations — including children under 18, seniors over 65, and people with asthma or cardiovascular disease — at risk. According to the ALA, short-term particle pollution can reduce the flexibility of growing children's lungs, trigger or exacerbate asthma, worsen chronic pulmonary disease and contribute to lung cancer. "Short-term particle pollution has been linked primarily to premature death," said Janice Nolen, the American Lung Association's director of national policy. "The increased risk of death is real and measurable in epidemiological studies across the country." The good news: Lane Country doesn't seem to have a serious smog problem. Eugene-Springfield ranked among the nation's cleanest metro areas in terms of ozone pollution, and Lane County also ranks low in terms of long-term particle pollution, which is a more serious health threat than short-term particle pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency offers more data about Lane County's air quality. The EPA's 1999 National Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) interactive map color-codes the U.S. in shades of blue, with darker shades indicating higher cancer risks from air pollutants. Oregon's darkest blue dot is over west Springfield. The dot corresponds to the Census tract bounded by Highway 126 to the north, Booth Kelly Road to the south, 28th Street to the east and Mohawk Boulevard to the west. According to NATA data, the area's air pollution creates a cancer risk of 1,241 people per million residents. In a tract with 4,706 residents (according to the 2000 Census), about six people could develop cancer because of the polluted air they breathe. The bulk of the air pollution doesn't appear to be coming from the usual suspects. NATA data show that vehicle and major industrial emissions barely affect the total cancer risk. Instead, arsenic compounds from area sources pose the biggest problem, constituting 96 percent of the total cancer risk. According to Lane Regional Air Pollution Authority (LRAPA) spokesperson Kim Metzler, the arsenic emissions could be coming from small businesses, off-road oil burning and home wood burning. "We already knew from the EPA data that arsenic is the pollutant that we have the highest cancer risk from in Lane County," she said. "We don't know for sure where it comes from. We can only guess." Metzler said that the NATA data is out of date, preliminary, and may not be entirely accurate. But lacking a comprehensive air emissions inventory of its own, LRAPA has no way of knowing whether or not NATA is on the mark. LRAPA board members David Monk and Drew Johnson feel that the uncertainties around the NATA data are reason enough to install more air monitors across Lane County. LRAPA currently maintains 10 air monitoring stations, including several in Eugene and Springfield, but only the station on Amazon Parkway measures hazardous air pollutants such as arsenic compounds. "We need a true emissions inventory in Eugene-Springfield," Johnson said. "If we're following the letter of the law and we still have this cancer risk, obviously the letter of the law isn't working," Monk added. Metzler agreed that LRAPA could use more air monitoring data and said that the agency hopes to install a hazardous air pollutant monitoring station near major industrial pollution sources in west Eugene. That may be a welcome move for residents who complain of emissions from J.H. Baxter and other west Eugene industries, but it won't answer the question of what's spiking Springfield's air with arsenic.
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